Posted on 09/19/2010 8:45:22 PM PDT by Captain Kirk
When the city of Montgomery, Ala., razed the home of Karen Jones' family last April, there were still photos and family furniture inside. The city says it gave Jones notice the bulldozers were coming, but she says the notices were sent to her deceased grandmother (the home's former owner) and a deceased uncle. The reason given for the demolition was that the front porch wasn't up to code. The city declared her properly "blighted," and destroyed the building, rather than helping Jones and her family fix the porch, or fixing it and sending her a bill. And then Montgomery sent Jones a bill of $1,225, the cost of the demolition. If she doesn't pay, the city will put a lien on the property. If she still doesn't pay, the city can seize the land or sell it at auction.
What happened to Jones isn't unusual. Over the last decade or so, dozens—perhaps hundreds—of homes in Montgomery have been declared blighted and razed in a similar manner. The owners tend to be disproportionately poor and black, and with little means to fight back. And here's the kicker: Many of the homes fall along a federally funded civil rights trail in the neighborhood where Rosa Parks lived. Activists say the weird pattern may not be coincidence. "What's happening in Montgomery is a civil rights crisis," says David Beito, a history professor at the University of Alabama who, as chair of the Alabama State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, held hearings on the demolitions in April of last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Because the city wants their property for another purpose? Who’da thunkit? “Kelo,” anybody?
Hey ,its just the change we can believe in is all.
They tear down her house, and then send her a bill.
This is sick.
Sick is the word.
Why is that so hard for people to understand ... lowest common denominator, officious, ridiculous nonsense is what government does best. If we (meaning left and right) keep giving government more and more power, we will keep seeing more and more nonsense.
Get a clue!
What they did is awful.
That said, the idea that the city would just make repairs to a private dwelling and send a bill to the homeowner is about as dumb as dumb gets.
Yup.
This is sick, but why didn’t she open the mail???
I doubt the city would try and recover the cost of a cleanup for a mercury spill they caused. The PR fallout would be to great. Sort of a poor mans scorched earth defense
Was the transfer of title ever properly registered, so the notices would be sent to the correct individual?
I don’t know but she was the one who paid the taxes and she was the one the city bill for the costs of demolition.
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